Germany: Stralsund and Rügen - Road bike tours in the natural paradise around Stralsund
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· 26.06.2015
You have to be built like Gert Friedel to be a racing cyclist on the coast. Hunger hooks that are blown over by the first gust of wind don't have it easy in north-east Germany. But a Mecklenburg "Kanten" like Friedel, at just under two metres and around one hundred kilograms, ploughs through the windswept Bodden landscape. Nothing can knock him down, nothing can stop him, nothing can blow him over. As a guest at the SV Hanse-Klinikum Stralsund cycling circuit, you gratefully benefit from the veritable slipstream provided by the "head of the cycling section" - as it is still called 26 years after the fall of the Berlin Wall. And because the section leader is a soul of a man, he also enjoys giving the slipstream.
The TOUR visitor can make himself comfortable in the back and enjoy the landscape of the Western Pomerania Lagoon National Park. We cycle through small villages with brick houses, along magnificent avenues and towards the coast, where the wheat bends in the wind on the left; on the right, the whitecaps on the Bodden, a Baltic lagoon, dance under the gentle breeze. At the small harbour in Barhöft, the turning point of the training round, we have a quick chat about where and when to get the best freshly caught fish. Then it's back towards the time-honoured Hanseatic city of Stralsund. Through an area where thousands and thousands of cranes rest on their way south in late summer. It's idyllic here, but also rather sleepy. And flat.
Far and wide, no mountain obscures the horizon. At most, there are tiny hills, which are immediately labelled as "Alps" - such as the 50 to 60 metre high piles of earth called the "Barther Alps" opposite the Fischland-Darß-Zingst peninsula or the bumps in the south-east of Rügen, which became the "Zicker Alps". All of which, however, Gert Friedel has managed to squeeze onto the large sheet.
You can download the entire article and the GPS data for these tours below:
- Tour 1: Hanseatic Tour (97 kilometres, 400 metres in altitude, max. 1 % gradient)
Between the time-honoured Hanseatic cities of Stralsund and Greifswald, foxes and hares say goodnight to each other - which benefits cyclists on the small, little-used and mostly well-paved roads. In typical northern German style, the route passes through fields and meadows, woodland and sleepy villages. You get your first real shake-up at Horst and then again on the side road of the B 105 - but the old cobblestones are gradually being replaced by a new tarmac surface.
- Tour 2: Tour de Rügen (118 kilometres, 800 metres in altitude, max. 5 % gradient)
Road cycling on Rügen is a good idea - just not in the summer holidays: Germany's largest island is hopelessly overcrowded in the high season. Our route leads along the German Avenue Road through the undulating north to Putbus. After Sassnitz, you climb up to almost 140 metres in the beech forests of the Jasmund National Park. The route continues with marvellous views over to Cape Arkona via Sagard and Lietzow between the Small and Great Jasmund Bodden to Bergen (unfortunately along the B 96). After Bergen, take the minor roads to Altefähr and from there continue by ferry across the Strelasund to Stralsund. If the six euros for the crossing are too steep, you can simply cycle back over the dam.
